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Tag Archive for Libya

December 30, 2013

The single-minded Republican drive to exploit the deaths of four U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 – and use the tragedy to embarrass President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – has obscured the more complex reality of what happened, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

October 10, 2013

This past weekend, when U.S. commandos captured suspected al-Qaeda leader Anas al-Libi living openly in Tripoli, it drove home the point that post-Gaddafi Libya has become home to many Islamic extremists, a reality that tarnishes what Official Washington likes to view as a great “victory,” as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar explains.

October 10, 2013

From the Archive: The U.S. capture of an alleged al-Qaeda terror leader in Libya underscores the failure of the major news media to give the public the full story during the military intervention that led to Muammar Gaddafi’s ouster and murder. Mainstream journalists behaved more like propagandists, as Robert Parry reported in 2011.

October 9, 2013

Many Americans scratched their heads at the prospect of going to war in Syria when U.S. intervention might tip the balance in favor of jihadists with links to al-Qaeda. But it would not be the first time that U.S. military meddling has advanced the interests of radical Islamists, recalls William Blum.

May 4, 2013

After a terrorist attack, if anyone dares suggest that the killings represent blowback from U.S. military violence abroad, that person can expect furious denunciations even though the point is almost surely true, a paradox that William Blum confronts in this article from Anti-Empire Report.

April 25, 2013

Even as George W. Bush is honored at his new presidential library, the painful consequences of his disastrous eight years in office continue to be felt, both at home with high unemployment and overseas with unresolved wars, including a troubling spike in sectarian violence in Iraq, as ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar notes.

February 28, 2013

In the 1980s, the U.S. and its Saudi allies teamed up to funnel money and weapons to Afghan Islamists whose bloody “victory” set the stage for the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Now, the same team is heading back to work supporting Sunni rebels in Syria, as the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland explains.

January 23, 2013

In his two Inaugural Addresses, President Obama has called for diplomacy to replace military bluster, but his failure to rein in U.S. imperial impulses during his first term has made the world dubious of his rhetoric as he enters his second, write Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett at GoingToTehran.com.

January 20, 2013

The Obama administration is pushing back against pressure to jump into a new “counterterrorism” conflict in northern Africa, with some officials saying an overreaction to unrest in Mali and Algeria could make matters worse. There’s also the danger of over-interpreting isolated events, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

January 17, 2013

Partly as a spillover from the U.S.-backed ouster of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, armed Islamists have asserted control of sparsely populated northern Mali, causing France to dispatch soldiers to the region. But does this new conflict affect U.S. interests, asks ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.